visiting toronto from mumbai recently, i treated myself to the
mystical landscapes exhibit at the art gallery of ontario. aside from any specific
surprises, disappointments or expected delights, some more general impressions:
canada’s troupe (including carr and the group of seven) plunge
into god as well or better than most of the rest of that presented world
the extra-thick crowds around van gogh, while not unjustified
(the represented starry night is powerful) and not as wholesale an absurdity as
the gaggling routine camera competition around the louvre’s mona lisa, remind
of something mostly to be forgotten
humans (and other animals) – while thick as art voyeurs on the exhibit floor – are
almost entirely absent from the art. yes, we can say this emerges partially
from the period – mostly a century ago, the selection process, in which a
certain strain of artists struggled with the increasing potency and
pervasiveness of a technocapitalistic society by withdrawing from its human and
industrial faces. but it is not just this (and related factors)
the divine vision – almost however we define it, palpably
elusive in definition though it must be – places the human alongside the myriad
creatures, without ascendancy … and how then can it appear in greater
proportion than the entirety of creation – almost [but not quite] nothing, an
aspect among teeming aspects of the creator, oneness, the universe, thingness,
irreducible and vast complexity, love (call it what you want)
starry night has, for example, some humans, blurred individuals,
hardly individuals, forms of sorts really, in the foreground, but small, more
like re-shaped stars … and those other stars (the original ones, our likely
destiny), those popping out like thoughts in god’s universal mind are the
backdrop and centerpiece of the drama, the settlements and affairs of earth
like icharus rippling into the sea in auden’s poem or bruegel’s painting … a
reality to be sure, but one like a shutter being closed or opened on some lane
in a village beside drying laundry in dusty-sunny air, clouds working nonchalantly
as they do on their important projects
and now? a century later? 6 billion more humans, the urbanized
percentage having risen from 13 to 58%,12 cities with more than 1,000,000
humans leaping to over 400, technology our skin and consciousness, god in an
unmarked grave, capitalism like nero in an rpg of rpgs, art a useless caboose,
a used tampon, a credit limit of vision, a dream journal, a cosmic rosary, a
desert song … now … where are the mystic landscapes and those who paint them?
with the soul made of garbage rather than numinous emptiness, how shall we ascend
descend migrate to the forbidden light?
around the time nietzsche went mad, georges-albert aurier wrote
– and this quote is prominent in the ago’s exhibit
–
we must become mystics again. mysticism is what
we need today; only mysticism can save our society from brutalization,
sensualism and utilitarianism. the noblest faculties of our soul are atrophying
… we must react.
is this sentiment even translatable in 2016?
(the journalistic reports on the exhibit in the dailies suggest
in their expected prose thudding lightly across pragmatic landscapes that
mysticism isn’t for everyone – a little out of place really – but that they’re
glad at least the results exist even if the origins seem somewhat off to the orthodox)
does the more contemporary reel-unreel
short shot in kabul (on the ago’s 5th floor presently) hold hints? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IuEM4w7Gbc
do the films on https://vimeo.com/videovectors ?
the paintings in http://bernardlegay.fr/ ?
the sounds on https://thenidus.bandcamp.com/ ?
the dancing dead, holding hands across the waking world?
